Experiences in Travel Abroad - 8 : Turkish people Beautiful to see and in character

The people of Turkey are very beautiful. They have black hair, clear eyes and reddish-white skin. Despite this, divorce is more common among them. Perhaps because higher education is expensive, girls do not study much. More than half of the girls do not even complete their schooling. We made many friends. They are the ones who come to meet us first. They are eager to know about India. They said that the Latur earthquake that happened in the past had hurt them a lot. Remember that the first plane to arrive with relief equipment and food for the people who had suffered in the earthquake was from Turkey. Earthquakes also happen in Turkey. They know the pain of it very well.

?Turks love flowers and plants very much. When they go to a party, they usually take flowers and small potted plants as gifts. My students ?gave me a beautiful plant as a gift when I took a special class for them . They specifically requested that I take it to India and grow it. Unfortunately, we could not bring it. When I returned from the summer vacation in America with the children, it was completely dry. Turkish people respect teachers very much. Like children, teachers also get half the fare on the bus. Half the fare is enough for museums and other sightseeing. My wife had ?to pay the full fare. The bus stops are always full of flowers. It is like a vine made of pitcher plants. It stands there, filled with flowers and spreading its fragrance. No one picks the flowers. The flowers here are unusually large because of the soil. Even the red hibiscus plant does not have leaves. It is full of flowers. I used to joke that even the roots of these plants have flowers.

?The currency in Turkey is called the lira. When we were there, inflation was rampant. The salary was promised in the same amount as the American dollar, but what we received was in their currency. If we received our salary on the first day and did not immediately convert it into dollars or pounds, we would lose fifty or a hundred dollars by the evening. Back then, we could get up to 1,000,000 (six zeros) lira for one dollar. But in 2005, the new lira was introduced by removing six zeros from the value of the Turkish lira. Thus, millionaires and billionaires were no longer like that in one fine morning. We used to pay three million (3000000) liras for a kilo of apples. Today, the new lira costs three liras for the same amount.

?When inflation increased significantly, efforts were made to control it with the help of the World Bank. A representative of the World Bank settled in Ankara. His name was Mustafa Kemal. The value of the lira depended on how much money was received as a loan at the end of each month. If the loan was delayed for any reason, the value of the lira would suddenly drop. Since everyone could keep money in the bank in any currency, if a few very rich people thought about it, they could quickly devalue the lira. Although they were very few in number, they had a lot of influence in politics and other things and were able to easily control the economic situation in Turkey.

?Teachers were given a 10% bonus every year. One year when we were here, realizing the economic crisis, all the teachers wrote that they did not want a bonus that year! We can think, what is this, a cucumber town? Should we not want a bonus? We remembered the bus strike in Kerala on the eve of Onam every year to increase the bonus. This was a good example of how aware the citizens are of the progress and decline of a nation. No need to get fined for littering in public places like in Singapore. People do it on their own. Even the elderly put their scraps of paper only in the dustbin. I cannot praise the people of Turkey enough for keeping their surroundings clean. They do not interfere in the more serious affairs of the world, but most of them are fully aware of the duties of a citizen.

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